Pakistanis Return Home

Leading statistics have shown a startling rise in Pakistani migrants returning home. The most recent report, conducted by the Go Back To Your Own Blasted Country Alliance, estimated that at least one million migrants had returned to their country of origin.

Experts believe that these changing patterns stem not from global recession, but because more and more Pakistanis are failing to adjust to life abroad.

Maghfoor Jatoi went to the Netherlands in 2008 to ‘send lots of EURO’s back to my parents’. Now, however, he has decided to make his permanent home back in Pakistan.

‘Even though I was earning enough money for me and my family’, says Jatoi, ‘my employers expected me to come on time and actually do some work. There was also only one tea-break in the whole day and any kind of gup-shup was frowned upon. It’s ridiculous. I don’t understand how they get anything done.”

“I have come back to be near my loved ones. Here I feel safe and comfortable and I can drink as much tea as I want. Who needs EURO’s when you can have dood patti.”

According to Kalsoom, ‘It was just too peaceful. I was in Finland for six years and there wasn’t a single bomb blast or deadly protest. A lack of death and destruction has made Europeans far too civilised. I missed the indiscriminate killing of innocents and terrorist attacks in my local bazaar. Life in Pakistan is definitely more thrilling.’

With growing disillusionment and ever increasing number of migrants are preparing to join Jatoi and Kalsoom back in their homeland.

Shafiq Amir, who has spent six of his eight years in the USA in prison, has ‘had enough’ and is preparing to return to Pakistan in the summer.

‘About six months after I arrived here, he says, ‘I ran over a cyclist. This is something that happens every day in Pakistan. But, here they gave me four years for reckless endangerment. Obviously, I most graciously offered the police some rishwat, and instead of gratefully accepting it they added another two years to my sentence. I have no rights here.’

Only a month after being released from prison, Amir was fined $3000 for using racial slurs.

‘All these kalas and goras are far too sensitive. I for one will never be going back.’